[35A School St., Andover, Mass.]
I have not answered your letter of the 9th promptly, and it seems a long time since I have written. It was good to know that your visit to Chocorua was so happy; andNoyes, Penelope Barker;f1 I trust you will at least have a restful time at Penelope’s. (TheresaEliot, Theresa Garrett (TSE's sister-in-law);f7 declined the use of Aimee’s cottage this summer, because her treatment for her ear necessitates her sticking close to Cambridge). Your summer weather, I hope, has been better than ours. IFabers, the1951 Minsted summer stay;i4 spent theAmericaPeterborough, New Hampshire;g4TSE's vision of life at;a2 first ten days of August with the Fabers, which was restful enough, with no benefits from the weather, a polo match played in the rain, a tour of the fields cataloguing heifers in the rain (there are three immense bulls which you would like – one of them once gored the bailiff, and is never let out of his cage) and the minor social events in local society – tea and croquet with Mr. and Mrs. Cobb is, I imagine, much like the kind of life at Peterborough. TheMurder in the CathedralHoellering film;g1seeking distribution;b9 film of Murder is definitely finished, I am thankful to say, for no one knows how weary I am of the words of it; and I think it is very good. It is to be shown, as I may have told you, at the Venice Film Exhibition, and in London in the latter part of October. And in America, presumably, if and when any exhibitor there wants it, but I fear it is too superior for any but the special theatres. HoelleringHoellering, George M.peddling his Murder;c1 is to show it in London only by itself, and not with other pictures in the same programme. I have had to write a note about it for the Venice programme, and now have to write a preface for the book of the scenario (with pictures, some in colour) which Faber want to bring out before Christmas. And I shall have to go to the first performance, and after that I never want to think about the play again. (WhichWilliams, Tennesseecomes to lunch with TSE;a1 reminds me that I had Mr. Tennessee Williams1 to lunch yesterday – I forgot to ask him why he calls himself Tennessee when he comes from Mississippi – I had supposed for a long time that he was either a negro or a female – he is a very agreeable friendly fellow, and was educated partly in St. Louis. I was slightly embarrassed by not having seen any of his plays, but the theme of the Street Car sounded so sordid and unpleasant, and just the kind of horror play that I do not enjoy and see no point in. So he was much nicer than I expected).
AlsoAsh Wednesdayrecorded for BBC;b5 IBritish Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)records TSE reading Ash-Wednesday;e4 have recorded Ash Wednesday for the B.B.C. and I think it is better than my gramophone recording; and'Virgil and the Christian World';a1 IVirgil;a3 have done a talk on Virgil to be recorded2 – thisCohn, Leonie;a1 in order to help Leonie Cohn who [is a] deserving refugee whose parents disappeared in Germany before the war, and who has just got into the Talks Department and I wanted to do her a good turn.3 But I had no great desire to talk about Virgil. ThereWeil, SimoneTSE's preface for;a1 arePound, EzraTSE writes introduction for;e2 three more interruptions to come: a'Preface' (to The Need for Roots);a2 preface for the works of Simon [sc. Simone] Weil, a'Speech at the opening of Le Livre anglais exhibition';a1 speech to open an English Book exhibition [sc. Festival] in Paris in November,4 andPound, EzraThe Literary Essays of Ezra Pound;e7 an introduction for a collected volume of Pound’s essays.
Itravels, trips and plansTSE's September 1951 Geneva stay;h4itinerary;a2 am to take a fortnight’s holiday by myself from the 4th to the 18th September. OurMme Amery;a4 housekeeper is to be away then, and the charwoman will do for John, while the housekeeper of a friend of his upstairs will sleep in the flat. I fly to Geneva and go by train to Vevey. The address is Hotel Belle-Vue, Cardonne [sc. Chardonne] s/Vevey, Switzerland. It is a small hotel which has been recommended to me, mostly used I gather by German-Swiss people on holiday. One can bathe in the lake if so inclined. TheClements, thein Geneva;a8 Clements tell me it is a charming place. They wanted me to join them in Geneva; but I don’t want to take a holiday in a city, and their hotel would be too expensive. I expect to see them however: IClement, Jamesconversation limited to grandchildren;a5 am very fond of Jim, but he has aged a good deal, and the only subject he is much interested in is his grandchildren.
IPerkins, Edith (EH's aunt);k6 am regretful about Aunt Edith, and am writing to her this evening. My only excuse is that I am always in arrears of letters to half a dozen people at a time, and the worse arrears get, the more powerful the inertia of sloth.
YouPrinceton Universityand Herbert Read;e7 have, I suppose, only about three weeks before term begins. I hope you will be able to make the most of it. IsThorps, the;e9 there any chance of your visiting the Thorps? HerbertRead, Herbert;c9 Read is going to be in Princeton in October, and I shall give him a letter of introduction.
1.TennesseeWilliams, Tennessee Williams: pen name of Thomas Lanier Williams III (1911–83): renowned American playwright; author of The Glass Menagerie (1944); A Streetcar Named Desire (1947).
2.‘Virgil and the Christian World’: broadcast by the BBC Third Programme on 9 Sept. 1951, and printed as ‘Vergil and the Christian World’, Listener 46 (13 Sept. 1951) – ‘The BBC and Listener, I suppose under the influence of Jackson Knight, spell it like this. I prefer VIRGIL,’ he advised Vernon Watkins on 20 Sept. 1951 – and revised for On Poetry and Poets: CProse 7, 627–40.
3.LeonieCohn, Leonie Cohn (1917–2009), born in Königsberg, Prussia, to a cultured Jewish family – the family had dealt in amber, and her father was a lawyer – migrated to Italy when the Nazi government denied her ambition to go to university at home. She studied languages, notably Arabic and Hebrew, at Rome University, but Fascist oppression forced her in Dec. 1938 to flee Italy for Britain (being Jewish, she would otherwise have been obliged to return to Germany), where she was sponsored by Herbert Read to act as a nanny for his three children. The capable Cohn (to whom childcare did not come naturally) joined the BBC’s German Service at Bush House in Nov. 1941, with support from Read and TSE (see below), working initially as a translator. In 1950 Cohn progressed from External Services to become a resourceful and distinguished producer of features and documentaries (including discussions with artists and architects, and the major series This Island Now and This Europe Now). She married Paul Findlay, chief engineer of Hamburg Radio and deputy controller of broadcasting in the British zone of occupation in north-west Germany; later Head of BBC TV administration.
TSE to Paul Chesterton, Overseas Establishment Office, BBC, 19 Nov. 1941 (Letters 9, 963): ‘I have known Miss Leonie Cohn for several years, since she has been living in the household of my friends Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Read, and I have formed a very favourable impression of her. She belongs, I understand, to a formerly well-to-do Jewish family in Hamburg, and is a young woman of cultivation and intelligence, as well as considerable personal charm. She speaks and also writes English well, and I am told she has considerable knowledge of Italian as well. While I have never heard her speak German I have no doubt that her accent is that of the cultured classes: and my impression of her personality is such that I do not hesitate to recommend her for work in the German Department.’
4.‘Speech at the opening of Le Livre anglais exhibition’, CProse 7, 641–6. The exhibition was opened by TSE in the Galerie Mazarine at the Bibliothèque Nationale on 16 Nov. 1951, and ran until the end of the year. See too ‘English Books in Paris’, The Times, 17 Nov. 1951; ‘English Books in Paris’, TLS, 30 Nov. 1951. The catalogue of the exhibition was published as Le Livre anglais: Trésors des collections anglaises (Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale, 1951).
2.JamesClement, James Clement (1889–1973), Harvard Class of 1911, marriedClement, Margot Marguerite C. Burrel (who was Swiss by birth) in 1913. In later years, TSE liked visiting them at their home in Geneva.
3.LeonieCohn, Leonie Cohn (1917–2009), born in Königsberg, Prussia, to a cultured Jewish family – the family had dealt in amber, and her father was a lawyer – migrated to Italy when the Nazi government denied her ambition to go to university at home. She studied languages, notably Arabic and Hebrew, at Rome University, but Fascist oppression forced her in Dec. 1938 to flee Italy for Britain (being Jewish, she would otherwise have been obliged to return to Germany), where she was sponsored by Herbert Read to act as a nanny for his three children. The capable Cohn (to whom childcare did not come naturally) joined the BBC’s German Service at Bush House in Nov. 1941, with support from Read and TSE (see below), working initially as a translator. In 1950 Cohn progressed from External Services to become a resourceful and distinguished producer of features and documentaries (including discussions with artists and architects, and the major series This Island Now and This Europe Now). She married Paul Findlay, chief engineer of Hamburg Radio and deputy controller of broadcasting in the British zone of occupation in north-west Germany; later Head of BBC TV administration.
3.GeorgeHoellering, George M. M. Hoellering (1898–1980), Austrian-born filmmaker and cinema manager: see Biographical Register.
1.MadameMme Amery Amery: housekeeper at 19 Carlyle Mansions, Chelsea.
12.PenelopeNoyes, Penelope Barker Barker Noyes (1891–1977), who was descended from settlers of the Plymouth Colony, lived in a historic colonial house (built in 1894 for her father James Atkins Noyes) at 1 Highland Street, Cambridge, MA. Unitarian. She was a close friend of EH.
3.Ezra PoundPound, Ezra (1885–1972), American poet and critic: see Biographical Register.
3.Herbert ReadRead, Herbert (1893–1968), English poet and literary critic: see Biographical Register.
4.‘PrefaceWeil, Simone to The Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Duties towards Mankind, by Simone Weil; trans. Arthur Wills (1952): CProse 7, 662–70. Simone Weil (1909–43) was a French philosopher, secondary school teacher, political activist (she was for a time a Marxist, pacifist and trade unionist, and she fought on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War and for the French Resistance under Charles de Gaulle in London), and idealistic mystic. Her influential works include La Pesanteur et la Grâce (1947); Oppression et liberté (1955). TSE to Herbert Read, 21 Mar. 1951: ‘a preface or introduction to a book by Simone is about the most serious job of the kind that one could undertake. One is so impressed by this terrifying woman that one wants to do something that at least would not risk her disapproval of it.’